Blacked Out

Why Is Scarlett Johansson Missing from the Avengers Merchandise?

UPDATE (6:55 P.M.): Disney Consumer Products contacted Vanity Fair with the following statement: “Black Widow is a staple in the Marvel Universe with a robust consumer products program. Tied to the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Marvel has over 60 Black Widow SKUS across diverse categories such as Hot Wheels, action figures, video games, t-shirts, costumes and collectibles, with even more products available for back to school and Halloween.” Disney also provided images of the Scarlet Witch and Black Widow items that are available, though not yet for sale, at Disney.com. You can see an assortment here and called attention to a new Avengers-themed fashion line courtesy of Her Universe and Hot Topic.

The original article continues below.

Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow has a pretty significant role in Avengers: Age of Ultron, at least based on the fact that she was essentially the star of the film’s final trailer. With rumors buzzing that she’ll get a film of her very own and memories of her action-hero chops in Captan America: The Winter Soldier, the flame-haired assassin’s stock in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is only on the rise. So why is it so hard to get a toy with her face on it?

But while Disney didmanage to find room for Leia (she is a princess, after all), the new Avengers: Age of Ultron line is right back to the male-oriented status quo. Among the 60 items in the featured Avengers: Age of Ultron line available on marvel.com, Black Widow shows up only four times (on a video-game starter pack, on a men’s shirt, on a book cover, and on a shopping bag). Elizabeth Olsen’s new character, Scarlet Witch, only appears once, on a separate book cover, though to be fair, her brother Quicksilver also only shows up there. (To be clear, we’re just talking about these two shops –– Black Widow and Scarlet Witch products are available at Lego, Funko, and a number of other places.) Weirdly, popular female Marvel character Captain Marvel, a.k.a. Carol Danvers, does get an action figure on marvel.com despite not being in the film at all. Perhaps a carry over from an earlier script?

The fact that Marvel would want to flaunt their newest acquisition, Spider-Man, should come as no surprise. But why does Paul Bettany’s Vision (he’s the purple guy up there) get prominent placement while Black Widow gets sidelined? Why does Hawkeye get several items of his own when Jeremy Renner has only featured prominently in one Marvel film so far? It’s natural to hope for a non-sexist answer, especially given that Avengers director Joss Whedon is such a champion of feminist causes and the film itself makes a point of being inclusive.

But as essays like this one from former a Marvel employee indicate, it seems pretty clear that Disney doesn’t think boys are interested in female heroes and, even worse, that little girls don’t care about action heroes at all. So what, exactly, do they think blockbuster characters like Katniss, Maleficent, and Princess Elsa are?

Vanity Fair reached out to both Hasbro and Disney for comment, but did not hear back at the time of publication.